Saturday, November 17, 2007

Back to the Negotiating Table

So it was announced late last night that the WGA and AMPTP will start negotiating again, on Monday, November 26.

Hopefully both sides will make every effort to settle this thing.

The encouraging thing is that apparently this came out of a session last night at the home of CAA partner Bryan Lourd between WGA pres Patric Verrone, WGA chief negotiator Dave Young, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger, Fox #2 man Peter Chernin and others.

I like to think they were sitting around Bryan's living room in their pajamas drinking 40s and watching "Friday Night Lights", when they realized that they wanted to see how all of the show's story arcs were going to come out.

More likely, Big Media is realizing that they need TV to be a viable medium, and that the strike is just going to push people closer to the day when other new media -- which they don't control -- starts really taking over.

Hopefully they found some middle ground, and they'll get something done after the holiday break. Meanwhile, the strike continues.